The ubiquity of data networking has enabled the emergence of a vast array of on-line services. These services are independently developed and managed by numerous service providers. Users who access data and services on the differing computer networks and service providers correspondingly possess numerous user accounts. Because the services encompass business, entertainment, and social applications, security concerns vary with respect to the form of the user identities and passwords. Not surprisingly, the management of these user account identities and passwords is extremely challenging for users, who are required to memorize a large amount of authentication information (e.g., user identifier (ID), password, etc.) that are, most times, not intuitive. Depending on the service, security may require more complex (i.e., “stronger”) passwords, which further burdens the users' ability to accurately recall the proper authentication information. However, the use of simple (or the same) authentication information to access different services increases the security risks at both the user level as well as the network level.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for an approach that permits simple yet strong authentication for users to access multiple network and/or on-line services.